Waterfalls Burning
The Robbers Fire is currently burning out of control in one of my favorite stomping grounds near Colfax and Foresthill, only about 20 percent contained as I write this. I’m not sure exactly what has burned, but I believe up to six waterfalls may be burning right now: Devils Falls, Shirtail Creek Falls, Mexican Gulch Falls, Indian Creek Falls, Upper/Lower Chamberlain Creek Falls, not to mention the fabulous wildflowers on Windy Point. Once this fire is out, it will be interesting to see what has burned or not. I maintain that forest fires are a healthy and natural thing (though I have heard that this fire may not have started naturally, which is very bad), and among other things they clear out all the brush and undergrowth, which is desperately needed; but of course we certainly pray that no one will lose their homes because of this fire, and they say this could happen if the fire jumps the river, and I also sure don’t want to see that beautiful wildflower area burned up, which would also be sad.
Anyway, back to Horsetail Falls. After shooting the main section of Horsetail Falls I retreated back down the mountain semi quickly because I wanted to get back to Lower Horsetail Falls, which I have only been to once before.
I like that whenever I am here I am always the last one off the mountain. Considering how very busy this trail is during the day it is not so easy to accomplish. It is like a special bond or something I have with this mountain, always being the last one down. Well I did end up being the last one down again but I had to battle it out with some other people this time. I passed up a couple older people coming down from the top of Horsetail firstly (then they passed me when I took a detour to the lower falls). When I arrived at the lower falls there was (very surprisingly) another photographer there shooting the falls. I do not normally see other photographers unless I am in a popular location such as Yosemite. He was in my way so I had to wait for him and he was taking a sweet old time but I waited patiently, and while I waited I thought hard about how I could possibly get down to the lower section of this waterfall. The upper part (shown here) is 35 ft high but there is a lower part as well, which is just as big or bigger. The only way to get to it would be to cross the creek but this is impossible to do when the creek flows strong (which is most of the year). Perhaps in late summer? I’m not sure but I’ll figure out a way. Well all that thought strained my brain but the other photographer finally moved out of the way so I made my way down to creek level and started taking some photos of this cool looking slide. It was a great evening in the Desolation Wilderness.
July 13th, 2012 at 1:21 am
With first you need a fire frequency and intensity that is similar to natural to maintain the natural frequency distribution. In subalpine areas the natural frequency may be zero, and it may take centuries for natural vegetation to return. In Australia we have a problem that in areas close to urban we have a higher than natural fire frequency and some plants don’t get the chance to reseed before they are burnt and they are disappearing. In other areas the vegetation builds up because the interval is too long and we get wildfires. What works is a patchwork of controlled burns.